


Twisted Streets

by CharlieBravoWhiskey



Series: Faster on the Draw [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-07
Updated: 2015-08-07
Packaged: 2018-04-13 09:44:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4517121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharlieBravoWhiskey/pseuds/CharlieBravoWhiskey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“John, I love you too,” she said smiling brightly.  “I’ve been in love with you for a long time.”</p>
<p>“Really?”  John said, blinking in surprise.</p>
<p>Mary laughed, bringing her hand up to his face.   John grinned happily at her, wondering how he could deserve someone like Mary Morstan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twisted Streets

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Nothing is mine.   
> 2\. I don't believe this was technically ever Brit-picked or beta read.  
> 3\. If something is wonky, please let me know.  
> 4\. This scene was actually part of the whole story way back when I started this shitty story.   
> 5\. I'm sorry. I'm so very very sorry.

_**John, London, Eight Years Ago** _

__

“Come on, Johnny Boy!  Make an honest woman out of her!”  Harriet said, playfully elbowing her baby brother in the ribs.

 

“What!  Harriet!  I would never -!”  John said, sputtering.

 

“Oh, come on, John.  I know how noble and gentlemanly you are,” Harriet said winking.  “But a snog and a grope hasn’t hurt anyone has it?”  

 

“Harriet Watson!” John said, turning a deep crimson and quickly looking in another direction.

 

Harriet just laughed heartily and poked him in the ribs again.  “Honestly, she’s not going to say no to you!  Make her your wife!  Get me a couple of nieces and nephews!”

 

“Oh, my god, Harriet.  I am going to kill you,” John said burying his face in his hands.  “Or better yet, you will be the death of me!”  

 

“I am serious, John,” Harriet said suddenly very serious.  “She loves you and only you.  She won’t say no, I promise you.  Aks her before she tires of waiting.”  John looked up and saw his sister’s serious face.  She had a kind and gentle smile on her face.  “Go on now.  Make Mum and Da proud of you.  I know, I already am.”

 

John swallowed thickly and nodded.  He walked out the door thinking of how he would ask her, trying to plan for a future that was supposedly within his reach.  He walked for hours, turning over the problem in his mind when he suddenly found himself outside her front door.  John stood there dumbfounded and was about to turn around to leave when the door opened.

 

“John!  I didn’t know you were coming to see me today!”  Mary exclaimed with a bright smile on her face.

 

“I...I...” John stammered not knowing how he ended up on his beloved’s doorstep.

 

“John?  What’s wrong?  Are you ill?”  Mary said, reaching out to feel his forehead.  

 

John jerked back, catching her hand in his.  He lightly rubbed her knuckles with his thumb while he stared into her deep blue eyes.  

 

“John?”  Mary said trying to snap John out of his strange behavior.  A slight blush swept across her face as she stared back at him.  

 

“Mary.  Mary, I love you,” John said and then stopped trying to push the words out.

 

“John, I love you too,” she said smiling brightly.  “I’ve been in love with you for a long time.”

 

“Really?”  John said, blinking in surprise.

 

Mary laughed, bringing her hand up to his face.   John grinned happily at her, wondering how he could deserve someone like Mary Morstan.  He leaned forward and captured her lips with his.  Surprised, Mary squeaked before melting against him, deepening the kiss.  After a few breathless seconds, John pulled back enough to see her face.  She was smiling widely.  

 

“It took you long enough,” she said and laughed before leaning in again.  John knew that he had never heard anything so melodious before.  I think I might be going insane, he thought giddily as she kissed him passionately.

 

“Mary,” John said when they finally broke apart for the second time.  “Will you marry me?”  She gasped.  “I know that I am currently just a medical student, but I promise you Mary, that I will move heaven and earth to keep you happy.  We may never be the wealthiest people but I will be the most faithful husband ever.  Please say that you’ll be my wife,” John said trying not to stumble over his words.

 

Mary’s eyes filled with tears, only spilling down when she nodded.  She began laughing again, hugging John tightly to her.

 

“Was that a yes?” John asked bewildered.  

 

Mary only laughed again, happy tears soaking John’s shirt.  

 

_**John, London, Five Years Ago** _

 

John was not there for...what happened to his beloved Mary.  He had been at a patient’s home, helping to deliver an overdue baby.  John had only been told of the tragedy when Inspector Gregson of Scotland Yard came to deliver the news to him personally.

 

Michael Stamford, John’s long time friend, waited for him when the inspector brought John home.  A strong drink was waiting when John came in through the door.  John had pressed Stamford about the details, almost coming to blows when Stamford would not share them.  Stamford begged John not to go after the men who did it, but when  John shoved Stamford against the wall of their (his) home and demanded, Stamford could only agree as he bowed to John’s fury.  

 

“Stamford, you will tell me what happened to her,” John said, deadly quiet as he held his friend by his lapels against the wall.

 

“John.  John, please.  You...don’t...” Stamford said, stumbling over his words, only to be slammed into the wall again by John.  

 

“Yes, I do.  Bloody hell, Stamford, yes, I do,” John said raged, hands fisting tighter into his friend’s clothing.

 

Stamford’s shoulders sagged as he felt his knees give out on him, dragging John to the floor.  He eased John’s grip from his clothing and leaned his friend against the wall, throwing his arm around his friend.  Stamford did it in sympathy and likely to keep his friend from jumping up and doing himself harm.

 

John twitched at Stamford’s embrace but did not move away.  Comfort was the furthest thing from his mind.

 

“There were three men.  Copycat killers of Jack the Ripper.  Worshipped the ground he walked on.  They took it a step further and expanded their pool of potential victims to all women in general.  With all their victims they had...tortured and then...took turns...defiling them,” Stamford paused, swallowing hard.  “There was...every indication that the...same happened...to...to Mary.”  Stamford said finally coming to a halt.  He couldn’t look at John, but still kept his arm around his friend’s shoulders.  

 

“Were they apprehended?”  John said at last, his voice cold and clipped.

 

“Ah, no they were not,” Stamford said, pulling his arm away from John.  Something was wrong, deeply, deeply wrong with how John was acting.  John merely grunted and pushed himself off the floor.  

 

Stamford went to get up and follow when John stopped him.  “Go home, he said.   “Go home.  Go home to your wife and children.  I have business to attend to.”

 

“John?”  Stamford said, watching his friend leave.  

 

No one saw or heard from John Watson for the next three days.  On the fourth, a manhunt was set up to find the retired Army captain.  John was not found but the bodies of the three men responsible for Mary’s death had been beaten badly and found laying on the steps of a church.  Their confessions were meticulously handwritten and bound in their skin, their terrified looks forever frozen on their faces.

 

But still John was nowhere to be found.  The manhunt was extended but no one had seen hide nor hair of him.  When charges were filed against John Watson for the murder of the three young men accused of those horrible series of murders, there was public outrage on behalf of the physician.  

 

_How could a gentle and kind man do such a horrible thing?  It was unheard of.  Besides weren’t the streets just a little bit safer since Those Three were...murdered?  How dare the authorities besmirch John Watson’s name like that!  And after all he went through!_

 

Just like that the charges against the former Army Captain John H. Watson, MD were dropped.  But yet no one had heard from him.  

 

John Watson had disappeared from London.

 

***

 

_"Watson!  Watson!  We need you over here!" cried Murray, frantically waving at him._

_John looked up from  the wounded soldier he was tending and saw the panic in Murray's eyes.  He looked down and saw the mess that was Private Weaver.  Weaver's torso was propped up against a building they were pinned up against.  His eyes large, skin slick with fear and sweat, and his hands trembling.  Weaver's skin was too pale and too gummy looking for the wound to be a simple laceration.  John knew instantly that Weaver wasn't long for the world._

_John looked back to the soldier - Ellis - currently under his care.  Their eyes met for a brief second and before the soldier's eyes closed, John imagined that he nodded, telling him that it was going to be fine.  For whatever was going to happen to him, the dying soldier knew that John had done his very best to keep him alive._

_"Please...Please, Captain Watson.  Please tell Adelaide that I was thinking of only her when I died," Ellis said, as his eyes began to slip shut.  John wanted to cry.  This could have easily been him.  Ellis was there to relieve John for several hours when the attack occurred, surprising everyone.  John could have easily been the one begging to let Mary know that he loved her.  Too much pain and suffering.  And for what? John thought.  And for what?_

_That was when the bullet sliced through him, rendering everything in black, white and red.  His shoulder was a white hot ball of pain, as his knees buckled underneath him.  John did not hear Murrary rushing to his aid, Weaver passing at roughly the same time Ellis did.   John cried out again when Murrary touched his shoulder.  The pain pushed all thoughts of remorse out of his head.  Please, god.  Let me live.  Let me see, Mary again, he thought before he blacked out._

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please, don't humor me. I know just how terrible it is. I'd like to say that I've grown as a writer, but we all know that this isn't the fucking case, okay?


End file.
